Background: Body electrical loss analysis (BELA) is a new non-invasive way to assess\r\nvisceral fat depot size through the use of electromagnetism. BELA has worked well in\r\nphantom measurements, but the technology is not yet fully validated.\r\nMethods: Ten volunteers (5 men and 5 women, age: 22-60 y, BMI: 21-30 kg/m2,\r\nwaist circumference: 73-108 cm) were measured with the BELA instrument and with\r\ncross-sectional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at the navel level, navel cm\r\nand navel -5 cm. The BELA signal was compared with visceral and subcutaneous fat\r\nareas calculated from the MR images.\r\nResults: The BELA signal did not correlate with subcutaneous fat area at any level,\r\nbut correlated significantly with visceral fat area at the navel level and navel cm.\r\nThe correlation was best at level of navel cm (R2 = 0.74, P < 0.005, SEE = 29.7\r\ncm2, LOOCV = 40.1 cm2), where SEE is the standard error of the estimate and LOOCV\r\nis the root mean squared error of leave-one-out style cross-validation. The average\r\nestimate of repeatability of the BELA signal observed through the study was �±9.6 %.\r\nOne of the volunteers had an exceptionally large amount of visceral fat, which was\r\nunderestimated by BELA.\r\nConclusions: The correlation of the BELA signal with the visceral but not with the\r\nsubcutaneous fat area as measured by MRI is promising. The lack of correlation with\r\nthe subcutaneous fat suggests that subcutaneous fat has a minor influence to the\r\nBELA signal. Further research will show if it is possible to develop a reliable low-cost\r\nmethod for the assessment of visceral fat either using BELA only or combining it, for\r\nexample, with bioelectrical impedance measurement. The combination of these\r\nmeasurements may help assessing visceral fat in a large scale of body composition.\r\nBefore large-scale clinical testing and ROC analysis, the initial BELA instrumentation\r\nrequires improvements. The accuracy of the present equipment is not sufficient for\r\nsuch new technology.
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